Marching Bands of Manhattan
by Tragedy Tay
Summary: They never planned to stay together always, it just never happened any differently.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Marching Bands of Manhattan  
Summary: They never planned to stay together always, it just never happened any differently.  
Pairing: SethMarissa. Except not really.  
Rating: Eh, let's slap another PG-13 on this one.  
AN: Just a little cute fic in between angsts. Hope y'all like! Also, I have Ryan and Luke living together, because they are secretly in love. Alas, I am not good with slash. Maybe they're macking, maybe they're not, but in all liklihood...you'll never know.

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And as for lonely nights, she greets me every morning...  
-Patrick Park

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They aren't remarkable, but they aren't entirely unremarkable either.

They aren't Ryan and Marissa, they aren't Joanie and Chachi, and they certainly aren't Luke and Leia (thank god), but they are Seth and Summer.

There's a nice story attached to them, and when they're feeling cheesy they call it a love story, but only in their heads. They aren't perfect, they aren't even perfect for each other, but sometimes they are. At the important moments, they are. And _they_ are important. Maybe not in the grand scheme of things, but to each other, they can be everything.

They don't break up. Not really. They stopped dating, once or twice, but they can't break up. In their own fucked up hearts and brains, they can't say good-bye. And it's much more than simple geography that keeps them from being able to stay away from each other.

It's the little things that make them. The first time she told him she loved him, he was eating an egg salad sandwich. And he asked if she wanted a sandwich, and she said yes, absentmindedly, and without even asking him, he made her a turkey sandwich.

And as she thanked him she realized that she'd never told him she hated mayonnaise.

It's the eight years she missed that made her first love him, and she forever wishes she'd known him then, because he seemed to know her inside and out.

Sometimes she seems much too old, and he worries. And sometimes he acts too young, and she laughs.

They scream more than Ryan and Marissa, more than _anyone,_ but they always know when to stop.

And they loved each other. They just _did._

College was never the big trial everyone said it would be. Ryan and Marissa had a huge falling-out, broke up before they even started school, and stayed on opposite ends of the country after, but Seth and Summer laughed, and kissed, and fought, and worked, and got an average of zero hours of sleep a night, and they had so much fun.

They never planned to stay together always, it just never happened any differently.

She was only twenty when he proposed, he was barely 21. She hadn't known what he'd been doing, only thinking about how weird he sounded, like he'd painstakingly chosen every word.

They sat by the pool outside his house, and he kept glancing at her, and biting his lip, and she was actually kind of worried that he was going to break up with her. 

And then he was sputtering out that he loved her, he loved her "a _lot,_ actually," and she was wondering what the hell was going on, and then he asked her if she would marry him. 

All the air left her, and she managed to gasp out a yes. And she was crying, but only a little, and he was smiling, a hell of a lot, and there was a ring.

Summer's dad promptly disowned her, and refused to speak to her for years after, but Sandy and Kirsten were happy, at least. They still wanted them to wait, though, which was partly why a little over a year later, eleven days after they graduated, Seth and Summer got married.

Which turned out to be a good thing, because about an hour after they got married, Summer gave him some news. Just barely seven months later, amidst much crying and cursing, Jacelynn Nicole Cohen was born.

As soon as the doctor brought her back, the first thing she did was swing her arm out, and smack Seth, which made Summer laugh for about five minutes. Ever since then, Jacy had been trying to make everyone around her laugh. And also smacking Seth at intervals.

When everyone first saw her, the first thing they said was, almost always, "_Look at her **hair**_!" And Seth, massaging his own curls that had very nearly been yanked out of his head (Summer had vetoed the traditional hand-crushing, in an almost successful attempt to cause him more pain than her), would smile proudly, and Summer would roll her eyes, and swear that it would straighten by the time "Jacy-baby" started school.

They brought Jacy home to a one-bedroom apartment in San Diego, and Seth danced Summer around the tiny living room, Jacy sitting in the crook of his arm, eyes wide. Summer laughed, and sang, and they all ended up collapsing on the couch when their upstairs neighbors started banging on the ceiling.

Summer's job was pretty awful at the time, she ended up having to go back to work two weeks before Seth. He and Jacy had fun though, once she figured out that screaming for hours wouldn't make Summer reappear any faster. Seth liked playing with her, he liked the way she mimicked his facial expressions, and the tiny "WTF?" face she got when something new would happen.

He loved dinner the most. It was such a cliche, but he just _loved _it. They had a tiny table, everything in their apartment was tiny, it seemed. And Seth and Summer were smushed together, and Jacy was still too small for a high chair, midget baby that she was, so Summer would somehow hold her and her bottle at the same time.

And it was his apartment, and his wife, and his baby. _His_.

It was all he'd ever wanted.

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Chapter two coming soon!


	2. Chapter 2

And here we have chapter dos!

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_And it was his apartment, and his wife, and his baby. His._

_It was all he'd ever wanted._

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But it was also more than a little cramped, so they moved out when Jacy was about three months old. They stayed with Sandy and Kirsten for a month, then with Ryan and Luke in L.A. for about a week.

Seth hated his job, and Summer hated hers more, so instead of looking all over for better jobs that in all liklihood probably didn't exist, they just packed up their stuff, and their baby, and they moved. Kirsten sobbed, and Sandy could barely disengage her from her son. Ryan hugged Summer awkwardly, and Jacy just looked at everyone, then tried to shove her fists in Seth's mouth.

They moved around for a while, staying a series of apartments, then taking off again. They usually managed to call home every week or so, but Sandy and Kirsten still hated not knowing where they were, so to placate them they went home for Chrismukkuh, and Jacy's birthdays. They never stayed more than a few days, but it was still something.

Then Jacy turned four, all baby teeth, crazy curls, and lightning-speed jabber, and Seth and Summer decided to find someplace permanent, so that Jacy could get settled down for a year or two before starting school, and they could make enough money to get the kid a start to a college fund.

By then they'd been in Boston for three months (they didn't usually stray far from the East Coast, for some reason), and they were days away from flying to Newport, when Summer tripped down a flight of stairs in her building, and broke her leg. It was a bad break, she was stuck in a cast for a month, then she'd have a walking cast for another month after. So Sandy and Kirsten came to see them for the first time ever, Ryan in tow, and Summer felt _so embarrassed_, with the six of them crowded into an apartment big enough for two, at the_ most_.

And every Cohen took a _lot_ of space.

It seemed like she was forever flinching, like when every surface in the kitchen was sticky, or when Seth burned the cake beyond recognition, and Jacy threw a fit when she couldn't eat any, or when Jacy broke a lamp dancing around the room (Jacy was _forever_ dancing, dancing, dancing) and cursed right in front of Kirsten (though Sandy and Seth laughed like idiots). And as Summer could barely wobble around on her crutches from bedroom to living room to bathroom (she couldn't even leave the apartment, they didn't have an elevator), she couldn't really do much. She couldn't keep her daughter out of trouble, and Seth wasn't the most domestic person in the world.

None of Jacy's clothes matched, and only Seth and Summer's friends would call them out on it, when they came over to swing Jacy around the room, and give her presents. But Kirsten was not approving, even though she wasn't exactly unapproving. Summer thought that maybe she was just predisposed to spaz at Seth's family, but she still thought that Kirsten was looking on sadly, even as Jacy was tackling her new best friend slash victim Ryan for the umpteenth time, in her favorite red plaid skirt and a tiny lime-green tank top.

Then the week was over. Summer was about to have a little anxiety attack, so she was secretly very relieved when they all went home, and it was just Summer, her husband, and her daughter, and her eighty-pound cast.

Summer hopped as far as the stairs, and hugged everyone, and Jacy cried, and Seth kept trying to discreetly yank Summer away from the stairs, and Kirsten squeezed Summer, and whispered, "Come home soon, sweetie."

And Summer felt kind of mad. They had a home. In fact, they'd had, like, eight.

Then that night, she realized Kirsten was right.

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Jacy was asleep in their bed, and Seth and Summer were on the couch. Summer's broken leg was on a pillow on Seth's lap, and he was drawing something complicated on the cast with what was left of Jacy's markers. They were watching some old movie on TBS or TNT or something, and they'd done this a thousand nights before, they'd been doing it since they started dating the _first_ time. And she'd known that it was time for a change.

"Cohen," she said thoughtfully, and he glanced up before continuing to colour her leg purple. "We need to stop."

"An I hurting your leg?" he asked, confused, capping the purple, and picking up the blue.

"No, Cohen, we need to stop...stop moving all over. We need to be done." Seth looked confused, and Summer sighed, and stretched her leg out more. "Jacy starts school next year. She needs a house, friends. And..." Summer looked up at the ceiling, as if the words she wanted would be written right there. "I didn't have an x-ray."

"What?"

"When I broke my leg. I didn't get an x-ray."

Seth looked so completely lost that it was actually pretty cute. "Is that bad? Is your cast not right?"

"No, they asked if there was...a possibil...they did a test..." She couldn't finish, and looked at him helplessly, and then he _realized._

Because he'd only seen that look once before.

"Summer," he said, with a slow grin that threatened to expand off of his face. "Are you pregnant?"

She nodded, and he laughed, and hugged her. "It didn't get hurt, did it? When you fell?"

Summer shook her head. "Cohen, I fell on my leg, then on my ass. Babies don't live there." He stared at her, not smiling anymore, and she grinned at him. "No, they got the heartbeat, and just put me on different painkillers."

"And where was I?" he asked, trying to remember.

"You took Jace to eat, I think."

Seth laughed again, and kissed Summer. "We're having a _baby_!"

Summer nodded, her cheek smudged with purple from where Seth touched it. "Two Jacy's."

"Don't make me regret it, Summer-love," he said, and kissed her. He only called her Summer-love when he was half asleep, or drunk, and it always made her giggle, and feel like she was sixteen.

"Mommy," said a voice that was almost as tiny as the girl that said it. Jacy crept out of Seth and Summer's room in a tye-dye shirt that fell almost her her ankles.

"Well, if it isn't the evil monkey that lives in my closet," Seth said, and Jacy scuffed her heel into the floor.

"I had a bad dream," she whispered, in a shaky baby voice that reminded Summer that her little monkey _was_ still halfway a baby.

Summer opened her arms, and Jacy hurtled over toys and jumped into Summer's arms, burying her face in her chest, and breathing deeply. Because Summer was _Mommy_, and _Mommy_ could always fix _anything_.

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Review!


	3. Chapter 3

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No one said anything about _settling down _for a while after. Seth and Summer didn't say much of anything to each other, for a month, actually. They played with Jacy, and Seth complained about work, and Summer complained about how her ass was starting to take the shape of the couch, or the couch was starting to take the shape of her ass, or something to that effect.

And that was it until the day Summer got her cast off, and killed two birds with one stone (so to speak) by getting an ultrasound twenty minutes later.

The little black and white picture of indiscernible lines and bumps made her braver, and that night she brought it up again.

They were all eating grilled cheese sandwiches on Seth and Summer's bed, and Jacy was telling a very long story about Matthew next door, intermingled with hints about how she wanted Seth's Nirvana poster. They had a million posters on their walls, Summer often complained that it looked like a dorm room.

"Come on, Jace, wouldn't you rather have a unicorn, or something?"

"No, _Daddy_," Jacy exclaimed shaking her head forcefully, and causing a few strands of curl to slap Summer's arm. "God! Unicorns are weird."

"And a four year-old with a Nirvana poster is _so_ normal."

"Puh-_lease_!" Jacy yelled, attaching herself to his arm.

Seth swung her back and forth, and Jacy shrieked as her sandwich fell off the bed. "You wouldn't be able to fit it on your wall anyway! It's _completely_ covered."

"I only got four posters!" she yelped indignantly.

"Yeah right, chickadee. You took my Sublime poster last week. Which brings to mind the question, what is your fascination with dead people?"

Summer finally decided to add something. "Maybe we can get you a bigger room, baby," she said, pulling at a strap on her air cast.

Jacy squinted at Summer, confused. "We movin' again?" she asked, and Summer loved her little voice, a voice that had about ten accents all mixed together.

Summer looked at Seth, and his expression mirrored his daughter's. "Here, Jacy," he said quietly, and pulled down the poster. "Go find a spot, I'll help you hang it up in a second."

Jacy took the poster, and hugged it to her chest, eyes darting between Seth and Summer. She wasn't a stupid kid, she was annoyingly smart, actually, and she knew when something was up.

She crept out of the room, and Seth and Summer were left to stare at each other. There was music, it was them, so there was _always_ music. Coldplay was playing softly in the backround, which Seth hated on prinicple, but secretly kind of didn't. He was just a music snob.

"_You're just a music snob_," Summer would say, whenever she made him cringe with her song selections. "_You emo people are allllllllll the same_," she said, grabbing his arm, and spinning herself around under it.

"_No, you just have no taste_," he'd retort, and Summer would laugh, and sing Spice Girls and Keane in two breaths, dancing with him, or Jacy, or whoever was next to her.

But that hadn't happened in a while.

"Summer, he said. "We've only been here five months."

"Cohen," she said, touching his arm. "I still want to stop. We can't do this with two kids."

Seth rocked on his heels, an annoying habit he'd picked up in the last few years. "You want to go back to Cali," he said, picking at the words, accusing.

She blushed, and didn't say anything. Which didn't surprise him, he'd always suspected that she'd want Newport back someday. Because California, _fucking California_, was...it was _ingrained _in Summer, it was in her very skin.

In a way that it never quite had been with Seth.

Summer stood next to him, and wrapped her arms around his waist, craning her neck to look in his eyes. "I don't want to go back there, Summer. I can't. Not with..."

And he didn't want to say it, but not with Ryan.

Ryan, who had stayed close to home. Ryan, who made three times as much as Seth. Ryan, the good one, and Seth.

It was giving Seth a sick feeling, the same one he got when both checks were gone, and there were still bills to pay. When Summer shopped at thrift stores, even if it wasn't often, and even when she insisted that it was only because there were cool clothes there. When Jacy wanted a toy, and he couldn't give it to her, and listening to her beg.

It was almost worse when she didn't beg.

But he couldn't give Summer California, just as much as he couldn't give Jacy a bike.

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	4. Chapter 4

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"I don't want to go to California," Summer said. Off Seth's look, she sighed, "I mean, I wouldn't _mind_, Cohen, but I wouldn't _make _you go there.

"I like moving," Seth whispered. He did, he loved it. He loved being unattached, loved being able to take Summer and Jacy wherever, whenever.

"I know you do. I do too! But it's time to grow up." She sighed, and hugged him tighter. "I love you, Cohen, but if we don't stop, I'll leave."

He stared at her, and she looked back, determined. He didn't doubt that for a second. Summer would shove him in front of a train in a second if it meant saving her daughter, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

Although, hopefully, that particular situation wouldn't ever come up.

"We're the gypsy Cohens, Summer. We can't be the Gypsy Cohens if we transplant to Suburbia."

"Yeah, but no one calls us that, whiner."

"Yeah, well. They should."

"We can be cool Cohens somewhere else."

He smiled ruefully, and she touched her stomach absentmindedly. "We don't have to go NOW, right? The lease goes for another six months."

"Okay," she said. "But soon, okay? Four people is too many for here."

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Seth thought something was wrong as soon as he walked into the apartment the next day, but he couldn't pinpoint what it was. He checked on Jacy, who was on the couch, then called for Summer.

She didn't answer.

He called again, then started to get nervous, as he tried to imagine any scenario that would require Summer to leave Jacy alone in the apartment, and then he heard a strange sound from their bedroom. His heart sank as he remembered what it was.

And sure enough, there was Summer as he walked in, slumped against the wall, viciously tearing apart a book, her eyes glazed over. She was mumbling nonsense to herself, and didn't register it when he called her name softly, but when he touched her shoulder her eyes flashed angrily, and she kicked out, hard.

He gently tugged the shredded book out of her fists, and wrapped his arms around her, and then she started to scream. She pushed, and kicked, and threw her head back, slamming it into his chin. She didn't say words, but she screamed out everything she had in her, and he held her fast.

Then she drooped.

She blinked twice, and gasped for air, leaning against him, confused.

She looked at Seth, who felt like crying himself, and then at the mess on the floor, and her eyes grew. "Oh. Oh god. Oh god, where's Jacy?" Summer said, and made a croaking noise as she tried to catch her breath.

"Sleeping, on the couch."

"Oh no. Oh no, Cohen! NO!" She latched onto him, and screamed again into his shirt. "What time is it?"

"Six."

"It was...four..." She wanted to cry.

"Summer, how many?"

"This is the first one, I swear. I haven't had any in six years."

They were still both on the floor, and Seth adjusted his arms around Summer. "I don't think Jacy saw."

Then she cried.

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That night was one of the worst in Seth's recent memory. Summer tried to keep away from Jacy, and Jacy was confused by that, and Seth, though he felt horrible about it, couldn't stand to have Jacy be alone with Summer.

Jacy was annoyed with both of them, which culminated in a screaming fit, that Seth and Summer joined in on, and Jacy ended up crying in her room. So did Summer, Seth suspected. He just stayed in the living room, which was silent for the first time in weeks.

This was shitty. Besically, that was it. Shit.

Then Jacy came out of her room, sat in Seth's lap as if nothing had happened, and shoved a book into his hands. "Read it, okay?" she said. "I'm bored."

He did, automatically, and she mouthed the words along with him. When he finished, she didn't move, but laid her head against his chest like Summer did when she was about to fall asleep.

"What's wrong with Mommy?"

Seth didn't answer.

"Daddy, what's the matter with Mommy?"

Seth looked at Jacy, and tried to think of any way he could tell her that Summer wasn't right. Summer was different. He couldn't let Summer be alone with her daughter. He was afraid.

"Mommy doesn't feel good, Jacy. It'll be fine. Don't worry."

Jacy nodded, and sat silently for all of twelve seconds.

"Read it again, Daddy. I wanna hear it again.

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_Seth walked to Jacy's crib singing her favorite song, which was basically Seth singing "Jacy Jacy Jacy" over and over to different tunes. She jumped up and down in her crib, cranky and hungry._

_"Jaaaaaacy!" Seth sang, as the big finish._

_Jacy screeched._

_Seth lifted her, and threw her in the air. She laughed once, and then tried to pull off his ear, yelling what, in pre-verbal, over-exuberant, feral child speak, obviously meant, "Boob. Bring me boob. Why are we still here, and where is the boob?"_

_Seth put Jacy on the floor, and she raced off in her search for Summer, but stopped short when she caught sight of the balloons and presents on the floor. Seth caught her in his arms, and hugged her, but she shoved him away. Seth was old news, she saw him everyday. Balloons were new and exciting!_

_"Happy first birthday, Jacy-girl. You're a little peach."_

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Rage blackouts, whee. Drama!


End file.
